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Claire Short: Can Leveson get rid of topless pictures?

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Summary of story from The Independent, January 26, 2012

Former Labour Party Member of Parliament Claire Short writes about her attempt in 1986 to introduce legislation to ban pictures of topless women in Britain’s tabloid newspapers, and its relevance to the Leveson enquiry into media ethics.

She says that MPs giggled and sneered at her suggestion that these pictures degraded women.

There was little publicity for her first speech on the subject in parliament but enough to produce a torrent of moving letters from women saying yes, please do it.

And so she went ahead and introduced her tightly-drawn Bill, and, she writes, the floodgates opened.

The Sun went to war with her, withe headlines like: “Twenty things you need to know about killjoy Clare”; “Fat, jealous Clare brands Page Three porn”.

It went on and on, she writes, and the News of the World joined in, even colluding with the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad – police – in an attempt to smear her.

Nearly 20 years later, having left government, she was asked by a female journalist whether she still objected to Page 3, and she said she did.

And the bullying and intimidation started again.

Half-naked women called at her home in Birmingham and startled her elderly mother, and a doubledecker bus full of them were outside her London home for hours.

Lord Justice Leveson’s current inquiry into the ethics of the press heard some impressive, if depressing, evidence this week from women’s groups (see WVoN coverage) about the continued use of sexualised imagery in some newspapers and about a culture of relentless sexism in some sections of the press.

But he said that his terms of reference did not stretch to such issues.

But surely, Ms Short asks, the depiction of half the population in a way that is now illegal on workplace walls and before the adult content watershed in broadcasting, is an issue of media ethics?

And the Leveson Inquiry should note her experience, she warns, to learn how the media can censor public debate.

The deliberate bullying she endured, she points out, was designed to stop her discussing an issue of public concern and to frighten other women off.

  1. I’m with Ms Short on this!

    Calling a spade a spade should not result in harassment. Even the Sun can’t honestly believe that Page 3 is not porn.

    It’s a shame that this issue has, yet again, been given the brush off.

  2. Viv Mayer says:

    “…his terms of reference did not stretch to such issues.” He’s clearly not thought very hard about his terms of reference. Pathetic.

  3. I think the problem here is that there are two sides to the issue. One, female identity. A society where half the population is constantly shown half-naked in media and advertising conveys certain values to its members. Second, the “right” of free expression for women and decriminalization of the porn and related industries. This second issue is the reason for some feminists to be hesitant to address the matter of public nakedness. Additionally, opposition to nakedness in media/advertising brings with it an instant response of ridicule and allegations of being old-fashioned and such, suppressing any sort of intelligent debate.
    However, let us presume that we would start to openly display magazines of naked men in supermarket shelves and in almost all advertising. I think it would be only a matter of weeks, if not days that legislation would put a stop to it.

  4. Well maybe he needs to review his terms of reference. If the sexual degredation of women by the media, and its proven links to creating a culture where violence against women is seen as the norm by many people, is not a media ethics issue, I don’t know what is.

  5. I have no objection to naked pictures of women on page 3 ( except that such papers are placed often at the height a child can view) what I do object to is the fact that there are no pictures of naked men on page 4. I do not beleave there will be any stopping of page 3 girls but there can be at least an equality in sexualisation. and there can at least be equality in the assumption on who the paper is read by. lets have naked women, but I want to say naked pictures of men possibly with an aroused member on page 4. any one up for a mission involving inserting loose naked pictures of men in to the sun ? lets watch them choke on their coffee…

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